The present invention relates to a multi-user interactive game and more particularly to such a game which may be played between distributed users interconnected with a host computer through a data communication network having appreciable latency, such as the Internet.
There is appreciable interest in multi-user interactive gaming both for training purposes and for entertainment. For example, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has funded the development of a SIMNET/DIS architecture for use in military training. The SIMNET/DIS architecture is based essentially on peer-to-peer Ethernet networks supporting a multicast mode of communication.
In the case of the SIMNET/DIS architecture, the effect of an action by one player on another player was typically modeled by the player towards which the action was directed so that the present situation and condition of that player (or his proxy) could be taken into account. For example, if the game being modeled was a tank battle, the effect of the firing of one tank upon another would be determined by the computer playing the role of the attacked tank, i.e. the proxy for one of the players.
There have also been proposed multi-user games in which the multiple users are linked through a host computer. While that host computer might be an Internet server, it was typically necessary that all players of a given game have direct access to that server rather than being connected through the Internet itself, because of the Internet's appreciable and often variable latency. In this type of game, essentially all interactions are controlled or modeled by the host which takes in input information from the distributed users and informs all users of the results of that input.
A principal object of the present invention is to facilitate multi-user, interactive play to users who may be fairly widely distributed and interconnected only by means of a data communication network having significant and variable latency, such as the Internet. To this end, a novel hybrid architecture has been devised.